America's Dim Bulbs

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, September 10, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Energy Savings: Europe's ban on the incandescent light bulb began phasing in this month, and the U.S. will soon follow. Is Thomas Edison to blame for global warming? And why are we exporting green jobs?

When the warm-mongers assemble in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, no doubt their work to save the earth from the carbon dioxide that gives it life will take place under the eerie light thrown off by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) mandated by the European Union to fight climate change.

The bulbs are more expensive, costing up to six times as much as an equivalent incandescent bulb. But they're said to be more economical in the long run because they supposedly use up to 80% less energy than old-style bulbs and don't burn out as quickly.

The change will be gradual. The clear 60-watt bulb will be allowed to be sold until at least September 2011 and clear 40-watt bulbs until 2012. In Germany there's a run on Edison's creation, with sales of incandescents up 34%. Is a black market in bulbs in the offing?

The Telegraph newspaper reports that European officials are conceding CFLs are not as bright an idea as first advertised.

An 11-watt CFL is advertised as being the equivalent of a 60-watt incandescent. Officials in Brussels responsible for the ban admit that this is "not true" and that such claims are "exaggerated."

Tests conducted by London's Telegraph found that using a single lamp to illuminate a room, an 11-watt CFL produced only 58% of the illumination of an "equivalent" 60-watt incandescent — even after a 10-minute warm-up that consumers have found necessary for a CFL to reach its full brightness.

The European Commission advises consumers of the environmental hazards posed by CFLs. If one breaks, you're advised to air out rooms and avoid using vacuum cleaners to prevent exposure to mercury in the bulbs. You can't just throw out an old bulb. It must be properly thrown out, lest your bedroom or family room become a Superfund toxic waste site.

Mercury is considered by environmentalists to be among the most toxic of toxic substances and, yes, it is dangerous if ingested or handled over time. We've been warned that high concentrations in fish are dangerous to pregnant women. We've been told mercury in vaccines causes autism.

So now it's safe in fragile light bulbs?

In 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act. It mandated CFL use in the U.S., making incandescent bulbs a controlled substance and outlawing that bane of civilization, the 100-watt bulb, by 2012, with the rest outlawed by 2014.

CFLs work best in fixtures designed for them. Simply swapping bulbs may not provide the advertised service life and will further compromise the advertised illumination. And if you have dimmer switches, well, regular CFLs don't work well with them.

Seeing this further intrusion into the free market and denial of consumer choice, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., last year authored HR 5616, the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act.

Predictably, it was buried in committee and went nowhere.

But, hey, think of all the green jobs that will be created. Problem is, they're in China. General Electric plans to close an incandescent bulb factory in Westchester, Va., next July, costing 200 workers their jobs. GE is also shuttering incandescent factories in Ohio and Kentucky, axing another 200 positions.

Not only are wages lower in China, but so are environmental standards, London's Times recently reported: "Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs."

Less light, fewer American jobs, increased Chinese imports and the danger of mercury contamination.

What could possibly be wrong with that? Maybe we should let the consumer decide.